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The Call and Qualifications 


of a Missionary 


SUSAR SASYS 


BY 


BISHOP E. R. HENDRIX, D.D., LL.D. 


265 


Missionary Training School 


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Tuts address, which was delivered in the Mis- 


sionary Training School February 1, 1905, made 


a profound impression. On hearing the address 
a representative of the Southern Presbyterian 
Board of Missions requested that it be published 
immediately, and offered to take half of the first 
edition of ten thousand copies for use in his own 
denomination. The School is grateful to the au- 
thor for this clear, strong, spiritual message, and 
the booklet is sent forth with the assurance that 
it will render a large service to the cause of mis- 


sions.— EDITOR. 


(3) 











The Call and Qualifications of a 


Missionary. 


HE Lord of the harvest still graciously re- 
minds his faithful messengers: “Ye have 

not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” This is 
their strength: that He who has called will sus- 
tain. Both “apostle” and “missionary” mean 
“one who is sent.’’ Sent by whom, and for what 
purpose? By the same Lord who sublimely ex- 
pected and predicted a line of heralds from As- 
cension to Advent, from Olivet to the “day of the 
Lord.” Only a divine Lord can plan and direct 
so divine a mission or sending. Man’s mind is 
overwhelmed by the extent of the field and the 
vastness of the work, even though he compre- 
hend but a very small part of either. The most 
gifted of men have pronounced the scheme im- 
practicable and impossible. Their minds have 
never been opened and expanded as were the 
minds of the apostles, the first missionaries, by 
the vision of the risen and living Lord. Only 


one risen from the dead can enterprise the 
(5) 





6 The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 


world’s evangelization, and only those who know 
the power of his resurrection are prepared to 
obey his great commission. 

It is the omnipotent God alone who calls and 
qualifies the missionary. The last word, whether 
of science or religion, is that all power is in 
God. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is 
every one that is born of the Spirit.” He who hath 
gathered and holdeth the winds in his fists hath 
even in these later centuries commanded the 
winds and the seas that they obeyed him. It 
was not only when the Spanish Armada proudly 
threatened Protestant England that God fought 
the battle with thunderbolts, but when William 
III. came at the bidding of the great patriots of 
England to claim his throne against the bitter 
opposition of the Papacy. Macaulay’s thrilling 
narrative tells of “the Protestant wind” for which 
the devout ever prayed until the successful land- 
ing’ made possible the security of the Protestant 
succession. The story of missions is the story of 
such signal manifestations of power when most 
needed as to prove that God still watches over 
his own by land and sea. So the Holy Spirit not 


The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary T 


_ 


only breathes upon the face of the waters, but on 
the minds and hearts of men—a more difficult 
work, because of the inertia and even opposition 
of the human will. But, whether in Christian or 
in pagan lands, the Lord of the harvest will con- 
tinue to thrust out laborers until the harvest is 


gathered. 

The only hope of the world’s redemption is in 
codperation with God. Philanthropists have 
found that out, and despair of doing anything 
worth while unless in accordance with God’s re- 
vealed will and plans. Mere desire for useful- 


ness, however worthy the motive, can never 
gather in the world harvest. Men faint in the 
way unless conscious of God’s leadership and 
help. Not the philanthropic but the thean- 
thropic motive is essential. Unless the love of 
Christ constrain, men abandon the task as hope- 
less. They need to catch His spirit who, having 
loved his own, loved them unto the end. It is 
the Good Shepherd who seeks for the lost sheep 
until he finds them. Hence the ministry has 
been guarded against men who would enter it 
because it is a respectable calling and affords op- 
portunity of usefulness and social position, rank- 
ing it among the professions of which the num- 








The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 









ber is ever growing. The solemn question is 
asked before one is admitted to the office and 
work of the ministry: “Do you trust that you are 
inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon 
you the office of the ministry?” Unless that 
question is answered aright, no man, however 
gifted and furnished, can enter the sacred office. 
The Holy Spirit as administrator of the affairs 
of the kingdom must choose his own agents and 
commission them. It is the Lord’s work, not 
man’s. Unless the Church can say, “It seems 
good to the Holy Ghost and to us,” no true suc- 
cess can be expected in sending out laborers into 
the harvest. 

Two things are essential in every call to coop- 
erate with God in the work of saving the world. 
The first is a supreme sense of the glory of God. 
No ambassador is sent forth by a European mon- 
arch who does not go forth after a personal in- 
terview with his king. He goes forth as his per- 
sonal representative, and must everywhere be re- 
ceived as such. He must therefore be impressed 
with the power and dignity of the royal throne, 
and know the will of his sovereign. He is always 
a representative, an ambassador, one who is sent. 
The moment he forgets his representative capac- 





The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 9 


ity he becomes disqualified. The more fully he 
represents the august power that sent him, the 
better foreign minister he becomes. Navies stand 
ready to carry out his will when it is also the will 
of his sovereign. He dare have no other will. 
He is strong alone in his representative capacity. 
Cables throb with daily messages from the throne 
that sent him. It is his to know and impress 
others with the power and dignity of his own 
government. So it is always with the ambassa- 
dors of our Lord. We must never for one mo- 
ment forget who sent us, and whose will we are 
commissioned to carry out, and whose power is 
pledged to sustain us so long as we are seeking to 
make known and to do that will. The greatest 
messengers of God have always been Calvinists 
on their knees and Arminians on their feet. “Our 
wills are ours to make them Thine.’”’ Thus are we 
authenticated of God. 
“The Spirit and the gifts are ours 
Through Him that with us sideth.” 

So sang Martin Luther in his great battle hymn, 
whose echoes fill the ages. 

Then there must be a deep sense of the worth 
of human souls. No man who underestimates or 
disparages his fellow-men can do his best work 

I 








10 The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 
































for God. Lord Bacon said: “The reverence of 
a man’s self is, next to religion, the chiefest bri- 
dle of all vices.’ We must awaken that self-rev- 
erence by ever remembering and teaching what 
man is in the thought and love of God. If we 
would show our love to God, we must feed his 
sheep and his lambs. Remember what we might 
be without his grace. John Newton once said: 
“Only the God who made the worlds can make 
a preacher.” It needs God’s patience and for- 
bearance to make anything out of us, and to make 
us channels of blessing to others. “I will bless 
thee and make thee a blessing.”” The measure of 
our own blessing is our power to bless others. 
This was the blessing of Jacob and of Peter, the 
power to strengthen their brethren. What had 
not God overcome in them to make them a bless- 
ing to others! The first law of architecture is the 
strength of the building material. Unless we 
have faith in man under God, we can never build 
anything for God. Man must be strengthened 
with might by God’s Spirit in the inner man, and 
the building material in China will stand any 
tests ever used in the days of the martyrs in the 
Ten Persecutions under the Roman Empire, 
when the blood of the martyrs became the seed of 


The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 11 


the Church. We must ever look for the better 
things in men and appeal to the good in them, 
bidding them not be overcome of evil, but to 
overcome evil with good. 

The mere sense of the need of the heathen 
world is not enough. The missionary who goes 
out with that as the principal motive is doomed 
to become bankrupt in faith, in courage, in hope, 
and so in love. The hopeless ignorance of the 
heathen, who have been robbed of the knowledge 
of every attribute of God, their thraldom to super- 
stition and vice of every sort, can but fill with 
despair unless one has the spirit of Christ. Fel- 
lowship with Christ is the ultimate ground of 
missionary effort and the ultimate secret of mis- 
sionary success. “Without me ye can do noth- 
ing” was spoken by the Master even to the apos- 
tles. It was not his words that they needed, but 
himself. Let this mind be in you that was in 
Christ Jesus, or nothing will come of your sym- 
pathy with human wretchedness and need. But 
“T can do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth me.” 

Then it is most vital to remember that our 
Lord has not two calls to the ministry—one to 
the home field and the other to the foreign field— 


12 The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 


but one. The field is one, and the field is the 
world. But one commission was ever given, and 
that was the great commission to preach the gos- 
pel to every creature, and to go into all the world 
for that end. Our Lord never promised his pres- 
ence save as men went out under that commis- 
sion to disciple the nations. He fixes the eye of 
every commissioned minister on the remotest 
nations, the last man, so that whatever be the 
work nearest us, whether at home or abroad, we 
must ever bear in mind that it is world-wide 
work, and that we dare not forget that the ends 
of the earth are to call upon God through our 
ministry. No other commission would have been 
worthy of the lips of the Son of God, and no 
other commission would have been sufficient to 
broaden and strengthen man for his holy calling. 
An unlimited atonement means a world-wide min- 
istry. A world-wide commission is necessary to 
make us ministers at all, to save us from selfish 
and narrow views of the gospel. During the 
eighteenth century, when England became un- 
mindful of this true commission, there was 
ground for Voltaire’s sneer that “the English 
people suppose that God had become incarnate 
only for the Anglo-Saxon race.” Its gospel was 


The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 13 


without power until it throbbed with the life- 
blood of the Great Commission. It is true to-day 
that the preachers whose ministry is most blessed 
of God are those who recognize but one commis- 
sion and keep in touch with the ends of the earth 
in every sermon and every prayer. 

There dare be no mental reservation in any 
commissioned preacher. If he has not accepted 
the great and one commission, he may well ques- 
tion whether he ever had any at all, or has lost 
it. Wherever the providence of God may place 
a minister as his special and immediate field, his 
gospel must go out into all the world if it be the 
true gospel. It is difficult in these days to find a 
minister of such little faith as not to believe in 
foreign missions. If there be one, he may well 
reconsider his own commission or how fully he 
obeys it. 

Four things may excuse a man from going to 
the foreign field: 

1. Enfeebled health. So exacting are the du- 
ties of a missionary amid the unsanitary condi- 
tions of pagan lands, the home of pestilence 
whence came the fearful visitations formerly even 
to Christian lands, that vigorous health is abso- 
lutely necessary. Soldiers and sailors must un- 





14 The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 


dergo rigid physical examinations before they are 
pronounced fit for service in foreign lands. No 
officer can be promoted to a higher rank save as 
his physical examination shows that his health 
justifies what his attainments would otherwise 
warrant. So vital is health to the preacher that 
in the Wesleyan ministry in Great Britain a sat- 
isfactory physical examination is deemed essen- 
tial, whether the candidate be accepted for work 
at home or abroad. It is all-important that a high 
estimate be placed upon physical health as well 
as upon mental and spiritual vigor, A man 
should be ashamed, as a rule, when he is sick, 
knowing that his sickness is usually due either to 
ignorance of the laws of health or willful viola- 
tion of them. One who suffers from feeble 
health at home can expect to suffer more among 
the untoward conditions which obtain where med- 
ical science has not yet taught its sanitary lessons. 
Some foreign climates are peculiarly unfavorable 
to certain diseases, as catarrh, tuberculosis, rheu- 
matism, susceptibility to malaria; feeble heart ac- 
tion, etc. 

2. Inability to acquire a foreign language. 
There is a language-learning period (usually un- 
der thirty) when, if a man cannot master a for- 





The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 15 


eign tongue, he can never hope to do so. Whatever 
be the cause, whether feeble mental powers or 
some mental idiosyncrasy, when the mind is oth- 
erwise vigorous, the inability to be able aiter due 
trial to speak to the people in the language in 
which they were born offers such hindrance to 
great usefulness as to forbid the continuance of 
such a missionary in the field. We know how the 
broken speech of foreigners who cannot acquire 
the English tongue unfits them for even the hum- 
blest positions among us. Much more would 
they be unfitted for positions of influence such 
as belong to those who are “apt to teach.” Such 
embarrassments come to missionaries themselves 
from their comrades who never acquire the ver- 
nacular of the land where they are supposed to 
labor that it were better that these should not re- 
main in the foreign field. As the venerable Dr. 
Happer, long of Canton, used to say: “Tf the 
Church at home knew the facts, so far from com- 
plaining of returned missionaries they would com- 
plain of some who won’t return.” Their places had 
best be filled with those whose acquirement of a 
foreign language is not so difficult a task. “The 
common people will not trust a man who cannot 
speak their language.” 

















16 The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 





3. Where family obligations are peculiarly im- 
perative. One whose aged parent is a hopeless 
invalid, or whose duties to some other invalid or 
helpless relative clearly indicate that the first duty 
is at home, can with a good conscience postpone 
any consideration of special duty abroad. There 
is no real conflict between duties. Let every one 
be fully persuaded in his own mind. It is not 
every opposition of parents that should bar one’s 
way to the foreign field. Sometimes parents have 
only a_selfish motive in their wish to retain at 
home one who would gladly obey the heavenly 
vision of duty. This may be due to a lack of 
broad views or of deep consecration, or even to 
unwillingness to be separated from a son or 
daughter. No such barriers should hinder one’s 
obedience to the voice of God. Even a marriage 
engagement may yield where the opposition shows 
a probable unfitness for Christian service. More 
than one eminently useful missionary has found 
his life companion in a like-minded fellow- 
worker in the field after being compelled to ask 
release from an engagement that promised only 
unhappiness if consummated in marriage. A 
heart, or rather a hand, that is won by the pros- 
pect of an easy parish or a wealthy Church is 


















The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 17 







hardly worth the winning or having. While such 
imperative duties, as indicated, may hold one at 
home, yet the utmost wisdom should be used in 
reaching a conclusion which may shape one’s en- 
tire life work. 

4. A manifest and imperative call of Provi- 
dence to some distinctive work at home. This 
may be educational, evangelistic, or administra- 
tive, owing to a man’s special gifts or attainments. 
Sometimes the best friends of foreign missions 
are convinced that an exigency in the home land 
may be so grave as not only to withhold a man 
from the foreign field, but even to j ustify recalling 
one to meet the emergency. Some of the most 
eminent preachers, educators, and administrative 
officers of the great missionary societies in En- 
gland and America were fitted for their peculiarly 
important tasks while in the foreign fields. 
Among these I might mention the names of Wil- 
liam Arthur, Dr. E. E. Jenkins, Dr. W. T. A. 
Barber, Owen Watkins, Canon Edmonds, Dr. 
Baldwin, and Bishop Wiley. But where a minis- 
ter is conscious of but one commission for the 
whole field, he dare not excuse himself from 
weighing every opening and his relation to it as 
if he were actually on the firing line. The truly 




























18 The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 


wonderful work done by the Rev. Charles E. 
Bradt in connection with his parish, the First 
Presbyterian Church, of Wichita, Kans., shows 
the power of the real missionary spirit in a man 
whose great sorrow was that he could not join 
his college mates in the foreign field. Determining 
to make his charge a missionary Church, despite 
their discouragements due to what seemed a 
hopeless Church debt, he laid upon their con- 
sciences the duty of looking beyond their own lim- 
itations and of supporting a missionary in China 
as well as a pastor at home. With the very effort 
to accomplish that much came such strength 
that now, in seven years, his Church has four 
missionaries in the field and has paid off all its 
debts, has erected a normal school in China at a 
cost of some $2,500, and is supporting some 
twenty-five native preachers. Who dare say that 
such a man is not obeying the Great Commission 
wherever he is? He gives his Church the true 
world view that saves from selfishness. 

Christ has no uncalled servants, no noncom- 
missioned preachers. The consecrated preacher is 
ever a volunteer, “if God permit,” for “anywhere.” 
Such men are not like the twelve hundred men 
who volunteered in response to Stanley’s call for 





The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 19 


men in Equatorial Africa, drawn by love of ad- 
venture, or the thousand whose names are on the 
list of applicants for position under the British 
Government in India, drawn by love of stipend 
and pension. The preacher is a missionary at 
home and the missionary is a preacher abroad, 
both under one commission. Let the preacher 
at home try his hand and _ most tactful 
efforts on some narrow-minded Jew or some cast- 
away, some crabbed son of Ishmael full of prej- 
udice or hate, ever seeking opportunity to bring 
back these lost sheep, and he will understand bet- 


ter the work of his brother-laborers in the foreign 
field. 


The question of personal duty being settled in 
the light of any positive hindrances which may 
forbid others, the missionary entering joyfully on 
his work must see to it that he has positive quali- 
fications. Surely God calls no man to preach his 
gospel who is not willing to qualify himself for 
that work, whether at home or in foreign lands. 

There are six all-important positive qualifica- 
tions: 

I. Such personal experience as enables the mis- 
sionary to set his seal to the truth of the Chris- 
tian religion. God must still reveal his Son in us 





20 The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 


if we preach him among the Gentiles. The mis- 
sionary must know whom he believes, and be per- 
suaded that he is able to keep what he has com- 
mitted unto him against that day. He must em- 
body the very truth that he preaches, so that peo- 
ple shall be reminded of Jesus when they see his 
messenger. His life must not be shaped by “the 
law of the jungle’’—personal pique and resent- 
ment, “an eye for an eye.” He must be “slow to 
anger.” He must teach and practice “the gospel 
of the second mile.” The natives are quick to see 
whether the missionary has heeded the Lord’s 
question: “What do ye more than others?” One 
burst of anger may brand a man with such a 
name as “Mr. Angry Face,” which ended the 
career of a missionary; while another one was 
ever called “The Jesus Man,” because his life 
preached as well as his lips. Missionaries must 
be the Lord’s witnesses, not alone of the truth as 
it is in Jesus, but of the life as it was lived by 
Jesus. The missionary can excel a Hindoo fakir, a 
Buddhist priest, or a Mohammedan mullah only in 
one thing, and that is in having the spirit of 
Christ. The others can excel him in asceticism, in 
indifference to physical comforts, and in religious 
zeal, the zeal of error, but not in the knowledge of 





The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 21 


the truth of Jesus and the resurrection, or in the 
love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy 
Ghost given unto him. They must overcome, 
who are the sent of God, by the blood of the 
Lamb and the word of his testimony. No mere 
love of foreign travel, no spirit of adventure such 
as takes volunteers to the army in Manila, but a 
deep experience of the things of God and the 
consciousness of having a message that is the 
power of God unto salvation can justify a man 
in going to the foreign field, or sustain him while 
there. So frightful are the demands upon a man’s 
faith and hope and courage and love that he needs 
to be able to draw daily upon One who can 
abundantly supply all his want, or he will become 
bankrupt. 

2. Rare common sense. I do not say common 
sense simply, which is the most uncommon thing, 
but rare common sense, a notable balance of the 
powers, that symmetry and self-control or mod- 
eration that the apostles sought and taught. The 
late Governor Brown, of Georgia, used to say: 
“Tf the Lord has left judgment out of a man, 
there is no way of ever getting it in.’ The min- 
istry, and above all the mission field, is no place 
for cranks. It takes more intelligence and grace 





22 The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 


than the heathen possess to stand a fool. Now 
and then one gets to the field, such as the mission- 
ary who wrote home that he would have a very 
good time but for the natives that kept coming 
to see him, and added: “But I have got me a good 
bulldog now, and do not expect to have any 
more trouble.” The opinionated missionary, the 
man of cranky views of the Bible or of Chris- 
tian experience, the man who is always wanting 
to call on the foreign consuls for gunboats or to 
overthrow the dynasty, should be recalled without 
delay. His unwisdom is chronic. You may 
pound such a man in a mortar with a pestle, yet 
will not his foolishness depart from him. There 
is not enough humor in his make-up to see his 
own folly. Such men are more the devil’s emis- 
saries than the Lord’s missionaries. They are tares 
among the wheat, but such tares as cannot even 
be allowed to grow with the wheat unto the 
harvest. ' 

The missionary needs to pray daily for “the 
grace of addition,” so that by giving all diligence 
he may add or supply in his faith courage; and in 
his courage knowledge; and in his knowledge 
moderation ; and in his moderation patience; and 
in his patience godliness; and in his godliness 











The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 23 























love of the brethren; and in his love of the breth- 
ren love of everybody. Missionaries need “gump- 
tion” as much as they need “grace and grit.” If 
they have it not, let them sell all they have and 
buy this pearl of great price. Let their daily 
prayer be that of Solomon for “the grace of com- 
mon sense,” and then all things else shall be added 
unto them—length of days in the mission field, 
success in winning the confidence and respect of 
the natives, and finally their very souls. Was it not 
this grace that our Lord commended when he 
said: “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as 
doves?” Some men look to the dove for wisdom, 
if not to the serpent for harmless methods of use- 
fulness. Verily they have their reward. It is a 
far cry to the time when “the sucking child shall 
play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child 
shall put his hand on the adder’s den.” Until that 
day these children of nature need protection 
against themselves as much as against snakes. 
3. Care of health. This is too sacred and too 
important a matter to treat as if neglect of health 
were due to lack of common sense. Sometimes 
when a missionary denounces or disparages doc- 
tors and refuses medicines, as if the Lord were 
pledged to care for his servant without means 














24 The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 





who lacked sense to make the right use of means, 
it may be a symptom of failing mind as well as of 
body, or it may be simply a species of hopeless 
crankiness which disqualifies for usefulness. But 
there are devout and otherwise sensible mission- 
aries who have too little regard for the religion 
of the body. Paul was not of that number, since 
the “beloved physician,” Luke, was his constant 
companion; and under his wise advice a feeble 
constitution was enabled to fight the good fight 
despite perils by land and sea and days and 
nights in the deep that would have quickly ended 
his career who lived to be Paul the Aged, and 
so gave the Church in all ages the benefit of his 
ripened wisdom. Paul believed not only in the 
purity of the body, but that it be presented “a 
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which 
is our reasonable service.”” A study of one’s own 
constitution, proper hygiene, and safeguarding 
against climatic conditions are the part of both 
prudence and religion. “Ye are not your own; ye 
are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in 
your body and spirit, which are his.” 

4. Ability to work with others. “Be ye like- 
minded” was a frequent exhortation of St. Paul. 
Learn how to work with others. “Ye know not 
















The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 25 


what manner of spirit ye are of,” said the Master 
even to James and John, who were afterwards, 
when they had more of the Spirit of Christ, to be 
called Sons of Thunder. It is a favorite delight 
of the devil, if he cannot keep good men from 
going to the mission field, to set by the ears after 
they are there. A quarrelsome missionary, one 
without sufficient wisdom to impress others with 
his views, and who takes it out in “nagging,” mis- 
takes his calling. The other day the American 
Board, after fully considering just such a case, en- 
tered this minute: “While not doubting the piety 
of A. B., we find after due trial that he cannot 
work with other people; therefore we order his 
return home.” A man who is a misfit in one field 
may sometimes succeed in another, but it is a 
grave risk to take. The unfortunate missionary 
who said that he never saw a Chinaman that he did 
not feel like kicking him unconsciously revealed 
the fact that he was a born “kicker,” unsuited 
to any field, abroad or at home. “Be not strikers.” 
Paul and Barnabas knew how to agree to differ, 
Their high regard for each other made differences 
in view so painful that temporary separation was 
wisest. Probably each was right. They could 
work well enough with each other, but Paul could 


26 The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 


not exercise toward John Mark that hopeful pa- 
tience shown him by his kinsman until the gristle 
had turned into bone. Then he wrote: “Bring 
Mark with you, for he is profitable unto me for 
the ministry.’ The gravest differences which 
arise in the mission field are differences of opin- 
ion about men rather than measures. 

5. Fidelity. This is the crowning grace, and 
the only one that cannot be counterfeited. Men 
can counterfeit faith, courage, hope, love; but 
fidelity unto death cannot be counterfeited, and 
fidelity receives the crown of life. Staying quali- 
ties are absolutely essential in getting the right 
and full equipment for the field and for laboring 
efficiently in it. “Patience and flannel” were once 
said to be the two greatest requisites of a mission- 
ary. Mastery of one’s self means mastery of one’s 
inclination to neglect his health or studies or diff- 
culties, and the settling down into “respectable 
inefficiency.” As only the well-furnished man 
should be sent as a missionary, so only the man 
who has added to his equipment by the most 
painstaking study of the language, the people, 
their modes of thought can become a successful 
fisher of men. Happy the missionary who has 
been a soul winner before he left home, and who 


The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 27 


has the precious memory of his “own sons in the 
gospel” wherever he labors. If a man does not 
flame with zeal for souls in America, he will not 
flame in Asia or Africa, where souls seem so un- 
lovely. Happy that missionary whose love of 
men enables him to say in whatever field: “If I 
have not love of the Arabs or the Chinese or who- 
ever they be among whom my lot is cast, it profit- 
eth me nothing.” It is love alone that never fail- 
eth, is not provoked, endureth all things, hopeth 
all things. ‘‘Lord, increase our love no less than 
our faith.” 

So much of the success of the missionary is due 
to personal work, like the Master’s with Nico- 
demus and with the woman at the well, that the 
strength of the missionary may all go in that way 
unless he constantly sees to it that he is a “nour- 
ished” minister. How he must feed upon the 
Word of God and bring forth things new and old 
for his own nourishment and the profiting of 
those who hear him! Commonplaces seem neces- 
sary in many stages of missionary work, but he 
who is content with commonplaces does not make 
full proof of his ministry. The test of a man’s 
piety may be how faithfully he studies to feed the 
flock of Christ. ‘Take heed to thyself and the 





28 The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 


doctrine, that thou mayest both save thyself and 
them that hear thee,’ was written to a missionary 
by one. The unchanging Oriental mind enables 
the faithful missionary to get an insight into the 
history of doctrine denied the student at home, 
and may make him an interpreter of the great 
doctrines of the cross in their development, at 
whose feet his brethren may delight to sit. Was 
there ever such companionship with Christ and 
with Paul as is possible to those who labor under 
like conditions, preaching by parable and story, 
by recognition of the best that is in an effete faith, 
in the endeavor to show a more excellent way? 
Above all things, fidelity in the use of one’s time 
is a test of religious character, whether at home 
or abroad. The missionary assigns his own tasks 
and divides his own time. What value does he 
put upon it? Emerson spoke wisely when he 
said: “Of what use is immortality to a man who 
does not know how to use a half hour?’ The 
missionary should redeem the time during all his 
waking hours; then his sleep shall be sweet. No- 
where as in the mission field is the promise so 
sweet : “So he giveth his beloved sleep.” Sleep is 
part of the wages of the worker, as when our 
Lord slept in the boat in the midst of the storm. 


The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 29 


6. The enduement of the Holy Spirit. The 
whole history of the apostolic Church and of 
Christianity is summed up in one sentence when 
our Lord said: ‘““Ye shall receive power, after that 
the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall 
be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in 
all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost 
part of the earth.” The whole missionary move- 
ment is the movement through men and upon men 
by the Holy Spirit, who alone can make men 
brave enough and tender enough to face men, and 
to bear with them for the sake of that God who is 
no respecter of persons. The Holy Spirit alone 
can guide into all truth. More willing is your 
Heavenly Father to give the Holy Spirit to them 
that ask him than are earthly Beate to give even 
bread to their children. 

When I think of Carey and Martyn, of Duff 
and Livingstone, and other master missionaries 
whose fidelity quickened and inspired the whole 
Church, I crave for myself and for my fellow- 
workers everywhere an eldest son’s part, a “dou- 
ble portion of the Spirit” that rested upon them. 
An answering voice speaks out of the super- 
natural : “If thou art with me when I am taken up, 
it shall be given unto thee.” God of our fathers, 

























30 The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary 


help us to stand in the company of such men as 
they are, clothed with their ascension robes, and 
take up the mantle which, in storm and sunshine, 
amid perils of robbers and of false countrymen, 
and in conflicts with wild beasts and more savage 
men, has sheltered brave hearts ever ready for the 
appearing of their Lord. 





The Missionary Training School Series 
FOR 1905. 


This entire series of twelve booklets contains about 360 
pages of choice missionary literature and covers a wide 
range of subjects. Surely every home in the Church 
ought to have a complete set. Reader, will you not help 
the school to send these messages of the Master into 
every home in our connection? ‘These are the subjects: 

1. John Wesley as a Philanthropist and the Social 
Mission of Methodism. By Prof. Thomas Carter. 

2. Paul asa Missionary. By Dr. O. E. Brown. 

3. Jesus asa Missionary. By Dr. O. E. Brown. 

4. The Call and Qualifications of a Missionary. By 
Bishop E. R. Hendrix. 

5. Problems of the Downtown Church. By Dr. W. F. 
McMurry. / 

6. The Church and the Boy. By Dr. W. W. Pinson. 

7. Religious Work among Miners. By Rev. J. W. 
Perry. 

8. Religious Work for Our Factory People. By Rev. 
E. O. Watson. 

9g. Problems of the Hour. By Dr. W. R. Lambuth. 

10. Agencies Working for the Kingdom. By Dr. 
John F. Goucher, of the Baltimore Woman’s College. 

11. The Need of Paganism for Christ. By Dr. John 
F, Goucher. 

12. Money and Missions. By Dr. F. S. Parker. 


PRICE LIST. 


Single copy, mailed to any address, Io cents. 

12 copies, mailed to the same address, 60 cents. 

25 copies, mailed to the same address, $1. 

The entire series of twelve, mailed to the same address 
as they are issued from the press, 60 cents. 

All orders should be sent to Walter R. Lambuth, 346 
Public Square, Nashville, Tenn. 


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Some of the Best Books on Foreign Missions. 


“The Pastor and Modern Missions,” by John R. 
Mott, $1; “ Life and Letters of Laura Askew Haygood,” 
by Dr. and Mrs. O. E. Brown, $1.50; “Missions and 
Modern History,” two volumes, by Robert E. Speer, $4; 
“Christianity and the Progress of Man,” Mackenzie, 
$1.25; ‘The Religions of the World and Christianity,” 
Grant, 4o cents; “ New Forces in Old China,” Arthur J. 
Brown, $1.50; ‘“China’s Book of Martyrs,” Miss Miner, 
$1.50; “ Life of Horace Tracy Pitkin,” Robert E. Speer, 
$1.25; “A Chinese Scholar,” Mrs. Howard Taylor, $1. 

These books can be secured from Smith & Lamar, 
Agents, Nashville, Tenn, 

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